Belmont Goes Bushwood: Tale Of An Overbudget Clubhouse Redo

Thanks to reader Bud for this Callum Borchers story of a Belmont Country Club's members feuding over an $18 million clubhouse redo swelling to over $30 million.

Add this one to the files of, why do people spend millions on a place where they will spend 15 minutes and skimp on the golf course they'll spend 5 hours on, and think it'll turn out well?

Backslapping has been replaced by back stabbing, and successful business people are doing “things that we would never do in our professional lives,” according to one message from the clubhouse building committee.

“Welcome to Belmonts very own - ‘Big Apple Circus’!!!,” Robert A. Schlager, president of Bulfinch Cos., wrote in an e-mail­ to club leaders last year.

Schlager had been asked by a friend on the building committee to offer advice on utility work and concluded that the club had a “team of misfits” handling the project.